The invention relates to a method and a device for the automatic control and administration of program-controlled medical apparatus or installations, in particular of endoscopic apparatus, according to the features specified in the preamble of the claims 1 and 9.
The administration, system setting and configuration of various medical apparatus used in an operation and in particular endoscopic apparatus must presently, before each operation, still be carried out manually by the operating personnel. For various operations or with various operation techniques for this various apparatus must each time be completely reset. Also the administration of apparatus or apparatus parts which are defect or are to be routinely exchanged is presently protocolled and monitored by hand.
If with known endoscopic systems technical problems occur shortly before or during the operation then presently the complete handling must still be carried out by the operating personnel. On account of the fact that here it is a case of highly complex systems with which often several electronic apparatus and instruments must cooperate in the most varied of configurations, the operating personnel is often not informed in detail of the very extensive measures and possibilities with the occurrence of a particular error or problem.
To make matters difficult with this there is added the stress of the operating personnel as well as the time problem with regard to overcoming the problem or error during the operation. Also technically orientated users often may not, or only insufficiently acquire and localize the corresponding problematics on recognizing an error or problem.
DE 693 15 961 T1 is concerned with a known device and a method by way of which, by way of a non-volatile memory which is provided in a peripheral apparatus (printer) connected by a LAN to other intelligent apparatus and is provided on a circuit board which furthermore comprises a bi-directional interface for coupling the circuit board to the peripheral apparatus and a LAN interface arranged on the circuit board, for coupling the circuit board to the LAN as well as a processor, resets the peripheral apparatus (the printer) after the use into a known configuration which is the same for all users. With this for each user the same apparatus data and settings are fixed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,397 describes a communication via a serial interface which is to be seen as a standard interface. Theoretically this communication in order to make it more secure and quicker may also be controlled via a CAN bus. U.S. Pat. No. 5,812,397 however at no location mentions a CANopen communication protocol or an extended CANopen structure which could permit a communication with equality of access, between in each case two slave units.
DE 197 22 221 A1 describes only a physical connection of CAN slaves to the CAN master. This means that this document discloses the standard of the CANopen bus. DE 197 22 221 A1 however does not give any hint how the number of slave-to-slave communication possibilities may be increased.
As is known the CAN bus structure, e.g. in the automobile industry, is used for the application in the motor vehicle, since the great and numerous malfunctionings occurring here are mastered very well with the CAN bus.
It is the object of the invention to provide a method and a device for the automatic administration of apparatus and installations which are spatially and functionally allocated to one another, in particular of endoscopic apparatus, which relieve the personnel and may save costs for the administration and/or the setting of the apparatus.
The part of the object with respect to the method is achieved by the features specified in claim 14, the part with respect to the device by the features specified in claim 22.
The method and the device are in the position of simultaneously controlling or monitoring the apparatus or installations of several operating theaters or operations.
The method according to the invention and the device bring a considerable simplification of the system operation for the operating personnel, since before a certain operation all apparatus, in particular of an endoscopic system, may be brought into the configuration and apparatus setting necessary for an operation or operation technique.
Furthermore according to the invention all changes or settings which during an operation are carried out on the apparatus, may be automatically acquired. In particular a multitude of operating steps which are necessary before an operation on all apparatus required for an operation may be reduced to a single system operation. Every surgeon employed with the operation may with this take into account his subjective demands with the system setting and simultaneously with the beginning of the operation may be sure that for each particular application his defined system setting has been carried out.
So that the long term absence of breakdown of a complete system may be extended and in order to save maintenance costs the user is in good time made aware, by way of suitable messages on the monitor of a master computer or of another output apparatus, of critical installation components, such as the exchange of wearing parts, the refilling of fluids and gas, electronic or physical problems, and is also made conscious of the suitable point in time for the maintenance of the installation or of individual apparatus. By way of this the probability of the arising of a system error, apparatus error or breakdown during operation is significantly reduced.
Furthermore according to the invention it is possible to understand all information arising with a medical instrument or endoscopic system during an operation, also afterwards. Furthermore such information may be sent for documentation purposes, i.e. be stored.
The operating personnel are relieved above all with technical problems occurring during an operation, since on recognition of a system disturbance, of an apparatus error or a breakdown of this, in the whole system there is effected a suitable intelligent treatment of the situation. With this the actual system condition is automatically acquired and analyzed. Subsequently according to possibility the corresponding error elimination, such as e.g. the replacement of a broken down apparatus by a similar one, is initiated automatically.
For fulfilling the above mentioned objects the apparatus of one or more operating theaters of a clinic are connected to one another and to a master computer by way of a CAN bus with an opened CANopen structure, by way of which they may be centrally administrated or controlled.
All apparatus according to the invention have at their disposal an intelligent program-controlled processor unit and are in the position, via the CAN bus, of informing all occurring process data or parameters to one another and to the master computer.
By way of special control, administration, communication and error protocols defined for each of the connected-up apparatus and for the master computer all the above mentioned objects may be realized with respect to software. The software is implemented in the whole system, i.e. in the master computer and in the connected-up apparatus.
The communication is effected by changing the standardized CANopen protocol. This uses standard point-to-point connections (peer-to-peer connections). By changing the communication structure logical transmitting and receiving addresses as well as hardware transmitting and receiving buffers are saved. These apparatus communicate with the opened CANopen master slave protocol either via a double ring structure, a ring-star structure or a ring-ring structure. These communication structures are however not made possible with respect to hardware but logically via a suitable addressing.
With the double ring structure if the number of nodes remains equal the transmission time is shortened and the bus load is reduced, since the communication takes place in two directions. For each node, i.e. the interface of an apparatus, of the master computer and of the replacement computer, the node IDs of all other nodes accommodated in the ring must be known by way of an algorithm, by way of address lists or by way of transmission from the master computer. The nodes then decide which path is the shortest transmission path.
With a ring-star structure star outer points are connected to one another by a ring structure. Apparatus which belong to a system or to a group of apparatus and thus require a fast data exchange are connected together to a star. In this case there takes place a peer-to peer connection between the star point and the star outer point as the quickest transmission form. The communication between star outer point and star outer point takes place via the star point (star outer point- greater than star point- greater than star outer point).
For each node the node IDs of all other nodes accommodated in the ring must be known via an algorithm or via address lists or by way of transmission from the master computer.
The node IDs are present for the nodes in a table/matrix. From the table the node IDs of a line are grouped together to a star. According to an algorithm a star point is selected. The star points of all lines of the table are connected to one another via a ring structure.
With the ring-ring structure those participants which relatively often exchange data with one another are connected together to a ring. If further participants are at the bus also these are configured to a further ring. The configuration of a ring is effected as with the configuration of a ring with the double-ring configuration.
In order to permit the communication between all medical apparatus certain nodes of the respective rings are connected together to a common ring. This is carried out equivalently to the method of the connecting together of the star points to a ring with the ring-star structure.